Heart Shards
by Beren Tanner
Summary: A bitter brother, a guilty brother and a forgotten brother. A broken family. Adam might not have an angel protecting him but that didn't mean he wasn't being watched over. The angels have finally ticked it off and it's not going to play nice.
1. Prologue

**Title:** Bitter Heart

**Rating: **PG-13... I think?

**Current Main Characters: **Adam Milligan.

**Future Main Characters:** Dean Winchester, Samual Winchester.

**Summery: **Adam may not have an angel protecting him but that didn't mean he wasn't being watched over. The angels have finally ticked it off and it's not up for playing the nice guy.

**Warnings:** Spoilers for 5.22 and 6.1. Also will involve the use of a few Original Characters but this is mostly to further the plot until I can safely introduce everyone's favourite brothers. (I do admit to disliking OC's but I feel in this storyline it is a necessity.)

**Notes:** Inspired by a book and a Spider Diagram on Adam.

**Prologue**

**The Forgotten One**

Being forgotten is a horrible feeling.

It swells in the most bottomless pit of the stomach and slowly crawls it's way up to the back of the throat. Eyes burn with a relentlessness, until wave after wave of despairing tears have shed themselves down your cheeks.

One does not merely forget the terror of Hell.

The clash of blades wielded by two incomprehensibly powerful beings called Archangels. The weight of their combined grace as it slams into you over and over like the waves of an in-tide. Cries of souls, desolate and ear shattering plagues him every waking moment. The horrid smell of blackened sulphur, burning flesh and the blood – that salty, coppery tang – sometimes it is so vivid that he can almost taste it.

Fate is often an unforgiving mistress and as Adam has come to realise, a sadistic one was well. He, the innocent and manipulated boy, must spend an eternity in Hell while Sam - demon-blood drinking Sam - gets out scot free.

And Adam is left behind to rot, forgotten in this place of brimstone and fire.

What a bitter ending.

In the case of Adam Milligan, a fate too bitter.

A being, who answers not to Heaven nor Hell, who has watched over this soul since the beginning of it's creation, has deemed this unjust. Now, now it seeks to fix it and correct the interference of creatures who still have not learned their place in the story of creation.

This isn't the story of a boy left to suffer eternal torment.

_This is the story of Adam Milligan's third life._

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**Hope it's given you a taster. Chapter 1 will be up soon,**

**Beren.**


	2. Chapter 01

**Title:** Bitter Heart

**Rating: **PG-13... I think?

**Characters: **Adam Milligan, Dean Milligan, OFC. Mentions of Sam, Lisa and Ben.

**Warnings:** Spoilers for 5.22 and 6.1.

**CHAPTER Notes**: Slightly AU - Dean's shapeshifter deal was cleared up as a misunderstanind.

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**Chapter 01 – The Stage Is Set**

_**Adam**_

The last of the Milligan clan groaned, turning onto his stomach and burying his head in the pillow. Why was it so damn hot? Hadn't anyone ever heard of air conditioning?

"Awake at last, are we?" A stern voice pierced the silence.

Adam shot up, looking like a wildcat that had gotten it's tail stepped on. He jumped back when he noticed a person in front of him. Was it another of the angels sick games? Had Lucifer finally had enough of tormenting Michael and turned his attention to Adam?

He blinked a moment later. This person was definitely no Lucifer. Or an angel for that matter.

Sitting in front of him was a dark skinned woman, her equally dark brown eyes relaying the unimpressed look on her withered face. Far too expressive a face for an angel. Angels had a unique aura, it wasn't something you could see or feel on the hairs of your skin. It was something that resonated from deep within yourself, the depths of the soul.

"Not to be rude but who the fuck are you?" He looked around, "And where the heck am I?"

Lips stretched into a sarcastic smile. "Your conscience."

"Funny," Adam replied dryly.

She gave a croaked wheeze of a chuckle. "When you get to my age, anything is funny as long as you think about it hard enough."

Adam frowned, shaking his head. Why did it feel as though he had just been told something valuable, when all he had heard were the crazy muttering of an old woman?

"My name, you impatient brat, is Weeping Willow but you may call me Mother Willow. As for the where you are, South Dakota."

"South Dakota? How did I end up here? I was-" Adam cut himself off. He'd suddenly realised;_This woman probably doesn't know anything about the Supernatural._

"Hmm? Oh, you mean how you got of Hell?"

Adam flinched. The word hit him like a physical blow, the skin on his arms breaking on in goosebumps. He grit his teeth, "Don't say- say that word. Please..."

She sighed, "Looks like Tamar wasn't kidding when he said you'd be a lot of work."

"Who?" Adam asked bitingly.

He did not like his current situation. Stuck in an old fashioned hut with a strange woman and supposedly in the middle of _South Dakota! _No, Adam could safely say that he didn't like his situation one bit.

_Sadistic bitch, _Adam thought. Fate had already killed him twice, why not drop him in the middle of this strange place with a crazy banshee?

"Ow! What was that for?" He yelled, batting away the woman's stick - the stick that she'd just hit his head with.

Gingerly Adam fingered the throbbing temple of his head. He hissed when pain flared up like a white hot poker was being pressed to his skull. "Bloody balls, didn't anyone teach you that hitting people isn't nice?"

Mother Willow smiled grimly, revealing perfect, pointed teeth. _Like a falcon's claws_, Adam thought ironically.

"Well, now you won't be thinking those sorts of again, will you?"

He huffed. She had a point but damn it still hurt!

"Oh, quit that. It wasn't even an hard whack, silly child."

Adam scowled. "I'm not a child."

An eyebrow arched. "Funny, from where I'm looking you certainly seem one. And don't use that whinny tone with me."

"Whatever," he muttered, "How did you know I was in Hell? Or even about Hell?"

Mother Willow replied, "Tamar, of course."

"And who is Tamar?"

She blinked, looking at him in astonishment. "Why, my spirit animal of course. What else would he be?"

Adam pinched the bridge of his nose, trying and failing to understand the concept. "Your saying that some animal of your imagination told you about Hell? Yeah, right. Because that makes so much sense."

Another wheezy chuckled, "Death by cannibalism ghouls, resurrected, being possessed by an Archangel and then thrown into the very depths of Hell with no hope of seeing the light of day again. Is it really so different from what you've already seen? Besides, do you really think the angels would have saved you? After three and a half centuries of torture by Michael's hand just to get his hands on a vessel, I would have thought you'd learned something."

The late teenager looked away. Images of people he loved taunting him, blades so delicately, meticulously carved into his flesh, ripples of living electricity surging into his bones, blood like liquid fire forced down his throat; pumping a continuous flood of pain through him flashed before his eyes like the primitive slides of an old movie screen.

"I- I... Then how come I've never met it? And I d-died, shouldn't it have moved on or whatever spirits do?"

"You have met it, in dreams, in the corner of your eye. You've just never needed or wanted for that matter, to acknowledge them. Humans fear what is beyond the realms of understanding, yet constantly the unexplained surrounds us and is beside us, guiding us through the path of life. As for why it didn't leave, I can only guess. Animal Spirits are connected to their charges in many different ways, on many levels."

Adam frowned, cocking his head. "Then... what does that mean for me?"

She grinned crookedly, "It means Kid, that you have a loyal and protective guardian. Now it's your job to find them and give it form."

"-Give it form?"

Mother Willow nodded, "At the moment your guardian is but shadow and dust. It is up to the both of you to seek out the true representation of itself. For it is an extension of you and embodies all that you are and could be, it is the knowledge that you lack but will one day learn. You, Adam Milligan, must find the qualities that you need on your journey to define the animal within."

She stood up, one gnarled hand pulling the fallen blanket on the floor and placed it back across his legs. "Get some sleep, you will need it in coming days."

Adam was left bewildered. "But how do I-"

"Worry not about that, the answer will come with time, patience and _sleep_," she replied sternly, stressing the last word. Turning back around, she left the hut humming under her breath, words of her tribe and her people floating from her lips.

The boy who had died and come back twice over slumped back against the pillows. They were really very nice pillows, in retrospect.

He didn't know how long he stayed there, just staring mindlessly up at the hut ceiling. An animal spirit rescuing him from Hell? It sounded more far fetched then the happy-go-lucky angels the bible painted with it's ever so poetic language. Simply put, it all sounded like a load of tosh. A fool's dream. He was so sure that any second this would all dissolve and he'd wake to the putrid smells, burning heat and the mocking laughter.

And then the question that he had pointedly been ignoring seeped up into the forefront of his mind; why would an animal spirit save someone so worthless as him from Hell? The angel's had deemed him unworthy of their help and his brothers... hah. _Brothers my ass. _They barely knew each other, half the time he couldn't even remember Dean's name.

Years ago, before this shit had gone down, Adam had longed for a big brother more than anything. Someone who would mess up his hair, take him out to the park to play baseball, sneak him cookies despite Mom telling them no sweets before dinner, understanding when something was wrong without having to ask. Someone who understood him.

Instead he got two erotically-codependent brothers, who couldn't give a fuck about anyone but themselves, there sulking over their 'unfair' lives and each other. Unfair? They had a great brother behind them every step of the way, someone to support them. A Dad who showed them everything they would need to know.

Him? Adam got a mother who worked her butt off to make ends meet, using every scrap of spare time to spend it with him, loving and cherishing her silly son. Adam got a father that was never there, always going and never staying. So really, in the end who got the worse deal?

He sighed, closing his heavy eyelids. All this whirling of thoughts was giving him an splitting headache. Just a little nap wouldn't hurt, right? Yeah, he'd just close his eyes for a while, you know? To get a little rest before shit hit the fan.

Yeah, that sounded like a plan...

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_**Dean**_

**Location: Lisa Braeden Residence**

**Date: Tuesday 10th July 2011**

**Time: 3.15am**

It had been a good night. Not to say there weren't good nights but this time, if only for a little while, Dean had been able to forget the pressing concerns that were weighing heavily on his mind. He had been able to drink his beer, cuddle with Lisa and tuck Ben into bed without the distracted, dazed feeling crawling through his mind and wriggling around like rotting worms.

And yet, despite it all he couldn't sleep. A glance at the alarm made him grown quietly and slump further into the bed. His body was awake with a restlessness Dean hadn't felt in a long time. A time before. Before angels, approaching apocalypse and demon generals. A time when Sam had been gone. Stanford. When Sam had chosen university over staying with brother.

Ever since Sam's reappearance in his life, everything that had been staring to become okay had turned on it's head and become not okay. The thought of his brother was enough to make his blood ignite, jaw clench and stomach churning. Dean had been a big brother since he was four years old, those kind of instincts didn't just erupt into nothingness. He could tell that something wasn't right, that Sammy and his _new _relatives were hiding something from him.

Did Sam not think he would understand? Had he forgotten Dean had been to Hell for forty years? The cage must have been scary as shit, he was sure. But if Sam had been back since the beginning... Than really, how badly had he suffered in comparison to Dean?

Dean sat up. Swinging his legs over the side, he ran a hand over his face. The migraine he had been fight off appeared to be back and it wasn't alone.

Slipping out the room without disturbing Lisa, he sticked to the shadows and moved with a predators grace down the creaky stairs. After grabbing a beer from the fridge and chugging down a couple of tablets, Dean made his way to the living room. Sitting on the couch in darkness, he felt somewhat more prepared to think about everything he had spent the past year putting off.

Dean didn't want to go through this again with Sam. He didn't think he could deal with another round of lies and secrets. Already the rift that he had made peace with was being formed again, though he supposed he hadn't really done anything to stop it this time around. However, this was neither the most pressing concern on his mind or the most worrying.

It was a stupid theory and Dean hated his traitor mind for insinuating it but the more and more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. What if it wasn't entirely Sam? What if being the vessel of Lucifer had somehow merged them together? What if some of Lucifer had leaked into Sam?

Or was it that Sammy still had his demon powers and was afraid Dean would hate him for it?

And if it wasn't God, Angels or Demons that brought Sam back then what had?He didn't know anything that had the power to do something like that, except maybe Death. Could something have awakened with the coming of the apocalypse? Something from Hell? If Dean thought about it, they really didn't know that much about Hell. Did if follow a structure or was it chaos? Did the ranking have to be fought for like savage beasts or did they make political moves over one another?

Which lead to the biggest of his worries. What had happened to Castiel? Despite the bad blood between his brother and Cas, Dean doubted the angel would willingly not answer Sam's prayers. If they went by old law there should be seven Archangels, yet everything he had heard pointed to there being four as of currently. Did that mean the other three had been away on some kind of mission? Was the significance of this going to be a factor in a future situation?

Dean groaned, gripping his hair so tightly he wouldn't have been surprised if large chunks began falling out after this.

Because all this just couldn't be enough to dump of his plate, accursed Winchester genes and all. Reaching over, Dean clicked on the lamp light. A soft glow illuminated the room, dancing with the shadows on the walls. Lifting up a pile of bills, he picked up the bottom one left lying on the side-table. Quickly, he pulled out the letter and read the words of the worn paper that he had spent countless hours reading.

_To Mr. D. Winchester,  
_

_It is my sad duty to inform you of the likely death of your half-brother, Adam Matthew Milligan and his mother, Katherine Elizabeth Milligan. Traces of his DNA was found on a burnt cremation site and large trace amounts of blood in various areas of the house. Your father was the only named beneficiary and due to his death, the inheritance has fallen to you. While I have tried to contact your brother, I have been unsuccessful in my attempts to locate Samuel Winchester, so my only alternative was to contact you._

_A reading has been scheduled for July 16th. If this is acceptable I look forward to seeing you then. If there are any problems, please fell free to ring my office or e-mail me._

_Alexander Runemoor,_

_Solicitor of Wisconsin Law Firm._

Again Dean felt his heart wrench itself from his chest, leaving a hollow aching cavity behind. He was such a bastard, a stupid fucking bastard. So caught up in the relief, the wonder and anger of having Sam back, Dean had completely forgotten his youngest brother. _His brother._ If Mary Winchester smacking his head of the next time she saw him, he would gladly take it for being so heartless.

The kid had been fucking nineteen when he had died. What kind of kid died at _nineteen_? What had Dad been thinking? Clearly it hadn't been anything remotely sane or even near the realms of smart. Hadn't Dad drilled it into him knowledge is power? So where did leaving his youngest son oblivious to their world, when there were so many things that would love for a little piece of vengeance?

Dean sighed. Today was the tenth, he had already applied for leave from work. Going to his brothers home, sorting through his things felt like a grievous sin. A sacred place he should not tread up.

But Dean Winchester had never been the kind of person to care for the sacred. So he damned his feelings. He would go and he wouldn't return until he knew Adam Matthew Milligan inside and out. What kind of food he liked, what he liked to wear, what kind of school experience he had, if he had a good sense in music because there was no way he would ever acknowledge the kid as his bro if he had a bad taste in music. One bad music tasting, studious brother was enough, thank you very much.

He had no excuse. He couldn't say it was because he was too shocked by Sam's sudden or rather not so sudden, return to the living. The fact was he had forgotten Adam and if it hadn't been for the letter, it likely would have remained that way.

Dean had always valued family above all else and he'd-

It was almost like he'd been obliviate, or had a 'notice me not' charm spelled on him with anything concerning the youngest Winchester.

There was still yet one more question to answer in the large mountain of ever growing questions. If Sam had been resurrected, then what was to say Adam wasn't out there somewhere, alone and without family? Dean shuddered at the thought, memories of his own awakened to the wooden lid of his coffin and the panic that had rippled through him as his air was slowly cut off.

No rest for the weary.

And Dean Winchester was the most weariest of them all.

It was time for some answers and pity the fool that decided to get step into the man's path.

-End-

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**Hope you enjoyed the chapter,**

**Beren.**


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